The Capital One Playstation credit card looks like a great deal. After making your first purchase on the card, you get a $50 gift card to the Playstation store, and from then on, every time you make a purchase with the card, you’ll get up to five times the credit card points in return (you can redeem these points with Capital One for travel miles or cash back). You can even get a card decorated with images from your favorite Playstation games. The only problem with all of this is that some players have been saying that they can’t access these rewards and that they haven’t been able to since October 2018.
If you head to the Sony Rewards website, you’ll see all those great offers for the Capital One Playstation card. You might even be tempted to sign up, if you’ve played a lot of Playstation games and anticipate buying more. What you won’t immediately find is this note from Sony about the issues people have been experiencing with actually getting their rewards. The note says that Sony has been “implementing a variety of upgrades and changes to the Sony Rewards website” and that the company has “heard from many impacted users and we recognize that your experience hasn’t been living up to expectations.”
Chase, a gamer in his early thirties living in Texas, didn’t know about any of that before he signed up for the card. He told Kotaku that he saw an advertisement for the card on Facebook, was convinced to give it a try, and then received it in mid-April. He tried to link his card to his PlayStation account as soon as he got it, only to discover that it wouldn’t work, sending him to an error page. It was only then that he discovered the Sony Rewards Twitter account. That account linked to the message apologizing to players. Chase saw that message as well as the dozens and dozens of angry tweets sent to the Sony Rewards Twitter account asking for answers.
When you search for what people are tweeting at the account, almost all of them want to know why they can’t link their card to their Sony account, and why their points aren’t accruing at the rate they were promised. “Should I be worried that my points are about to expire in June but I have no way to earn more points before then?” one person wrote to the account yesterday. “Dudeee...going on four weeks now since signing up for your PlayStation Card promo and still can’t link the card to the Rewards site. Why run a promo at all in the midst of technical account issues?” another wrote on May 6th.
Kotaku reached out to Sony about the status of the Sony Rewards program but has not yet received a response.
While the message on the Sony Rewards site says to direct your concerns about rewards and points to their customer service, Chase said that he hasn’t gotten any closer to an answer about the status of his account through talking to them.
“I’ve called both Capital One and Sony multiple times, only to be told there are known ongoing account issues tied to the upgrade that are being actively looked into....Since October,” Chase told Kotaku over email. Over his multiple calls, he’s gotten no timeline on a resolution, and he said that the customer service agents he has spoken to seemed “reluctant” to give him more information.
“For all I know it could be fixed tomorrow, or six months from now,” Chase said. “Capital One representatives were the ones that informed me there is still ongoing and reported issues for user accounts that they are aware of, and that it is on Sony Rewards to fix.”
Chase described the ad he saw as being “all over” Facebook when he signed up for the card, though now he said that he can’t find it at all. The Sony Rewards website also mentions a mobile app, though the app is not available in the App store or the Google Play store.
Chase and the other upset players posting online say they really just want their points. Chase has still been making purchases with his card, though he says that his rewards have not accrued at the higher rate that the offer indicated when he signed up. He hasn’t even received the $50 credit to the PlayStation store because he can’t link the card to his account on the Sony Rewards site. “The fact that Sony thought it would be a good idea to market this credit card promo in the midst of all these technical issues is baffling to me,” he said.